So It Goes
by Two-Eyed Charlie
Summary: A little Halloween treat. Batman is dead, and he is forced to confront some tough questions and even tougher answers. I think you can probably guess who this was inspired by.


**You might be saying: EDN, you like Kurt Vonnegut too much.**

 **I'd say that you're right.**

 **You might be saying: EDN, it's Halloween, shouldn't you write something, I donno, scary?**

 **I'd say that you should just wait and read the story.**

 **Either way, hope you like it, and thank you kindly for taking the time out of your night to read it.**

* * *

 _ **So It Goes **_

Listen:

Bruce Wayne, the Batman, the protector of Gotham, is dead. So it goes.

He was cornered by a collection of his colourful rogues, everyone from the Penguin to the Riddler to Poison Ivy. They trapped him, managed to cut his leg off at the knee, kicked him around a little, then pumped him full of lead. That didn't kill him though. Batman is too tough for that. He'd been through the gauntlet of death far too many times, been wounded far too many time, been counted out and left to rot far too many times. He'd survive that. he always did.

The Joker knew that too. So he took Batman's head in his hands and broke his neck. So it goes.

His friends and family mourned, are still mourning. Clark and Diana of the Justice League were almost beside themselves. Commissioner Gordon and the GCPD had the bat-signal shining all day and all night, pointed at a tower, making sure the entire city could see the police cry in their own, special way. Alfred, Dick, Tim, the rest of the Bat-Family, they didn't know what to do.

The rest of the world wondered what would possess a man to dress up like a bat and get the snot kicked out of him every night.

That's because the rest of the world didn't know, would never know, that when Batman was 8 years old, a man named Joe Chill shot and killed Thomas and Martha Wayne, and a little boy named Bruce died that same night from a broken heart.

So it goes.

Batman's dead, but he's still fighting. He stands up, holding his side, cursing under his breath. He's in a lot of pain, but he's going to work his way through it. He always does.

He looks around at a world filled with nothingness. It's a misty black on all sides, swirling around nothing, closing in on nothing, shrouding nothing in darkness. He wonders if he's in Purgatory, or Hell, or maybe some alternate dimension. But he isn't. He's nowhere at no place and no time. And he's starting to get agitated.

"Where the hell am I?" he growls, feeling around where a severe wound should still be bleeding. It isn't.

"You are nowhere," a voice rings out from the nothingness.

Batman grits his teeth. "Who are you?" he demands of the voice.

That voice is I. That voice is me. That voice is the author of this story.

I say to him back, "You not much of anywhere Batman."

He doesn't like this answer. "What are you? What do you want with me?"

"Who I am is very simple Batman," I say. "I'm the thing that made you ask that question in the first place. I'm the thing that killed you and placed you here. And as for what I want, I simply want what we are already doing. I want to talk."

Batman's face creases under his mask, and he stares daggers into the nothingness around him. He feels things that govern his life daily, but in contexts that he's completely and utterly alien too. He feels fear, but not of his loved ones getting hurt. He feels claustrophobic, but not because of the darkness that closes in on his soul every time he wakes. He feels weak, but not because he just died.

He feels these things because I've shattered the one delusion that he's allowed himself to keep over the years. I've told him that he has no control. He's a pawn.

Most people would react the same way. I know I did.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he says, predictably, "but no godlike entity tells me what to do."

"I'm only a godlike entity to you, Batman," I say. "And the only reason you think that is because I told you to think that."

"Bullshit," he says.

"You think you have agency," I say, "because I need you to think that. It's a necessary delusion for you to have. But that's all it is. A delusion."

"There's no way that only entity can account for everything," he says.

"And why not?" I say. "I created the world you live in. I created you from a template passed down from writer to writer. In order to do that, I'd have to know everything you are and every decision you'd make. I'd have to create a world to fit you, and I'd have to make you fit the world. The only room for free will in that universe is the fact that you need it to exist, even though it doesn't."

"Bullshit," he says again.

Batman is feisty, stubborn. He's a man of logic, of science, of evidence, as any detective would need to be. But he's also a man on the edge. A man who fights against a criminal element using excessive force and fear. And, more importantly, he's human. Batman won't believe what I say right off the bat. He needs to be convinced. That's just the way Batman operates. But he won't like where I go with this.

In fairness, I won't either.

"Allow me to offer a rebuttal," I say. "Why are you Batman?"

He pauses. His face is still steely beneath the cowl. "Because I made a vow that no one would ever have to suffer the pain of losing their parents ever again." So it goes.

"The pain was too great," I say. "You had to do something with it. Something to help ease the pain."

He pauses again. "Yes," he says.

"So you became Batman," I say.

"Yes," he says.

"So you had no choice then," I say.

"I _choose_ to become Batman," he says, indignant. " _I_ made that choice. So if this is some gods way of saying that I chose wrong..."

"It isn't," I say. "And you didn't choose."

"I did!" he insists.

"No. You couldn't have done it any other way. The pain was too great. It messed up your mind. Killed you as a kid, deader than your parents." So it goes. "You're a slave to that night Batman. Always have been, always will be. That's why the only way to kill Batman is to actually kill Batman. You can't quit. Your parents ghosts won't let you."

He wants to protest, but he doesn't. The part of his brain that deals with rationality and arguments kicks in. It knows I'm right, so now, he does too.

But I'm not done.

"Do you know why your parents died?" So it goes.

"Yes," he says. "Joe Chill. He wanted my father's money. He gunned them down." So it goes.

"No," I say, and I see his face grow hot again. "They died because I killed them." So it goes.

He doesn't understand, not many people would. But he protests anyways, even if the chemicals in his brain don't fully know why.

"You didn't," he says. "It was a mugger. Joe Chill."

"It was me," I say. "I killed them the moment I started writing out your story. They didn't die in this story, but you exist. You exist as Batman. So they had to have died, long in the past, for you to be here, for me to play around with. I killed them just by making you Batman. I'm a murderer." So it goes.

He still doesn't believe me, but the rational part of his mind, the same one that just moments ago made him realize that I'm right, is fading away behind a wall of emotion. He's ready to explode. He will too, soon enough.

"Just like how you're a slave to that event," I say, "that event is a slave to you. It always exists so long as you do. Your parents are always dead so long as you wear a cape and cowl and call yourself Batman. At this very moment in time, your parents are being gunned down, preserved in a block of amber for all of time to see. And in that moment of time, you too are having this conversation with me, somewhere in the future."

He still doesn't respond. "The Wayne's must die, that's just the way the universe has to work."

Now, he explodes. "WHY!?" he demands. "Why them!? Why any of them?! What the hell kind of purpose could you possibly have to do this to me over and over again? To _them_ over and over again?"

"Because we need you to prove a point," I say.

"What?" he says.

"You represent something, Batman," I say. "So we need you to exist. To prove a point."

"You kill my parents," he says, "you torture my friends, you torture _me,_ all just to prove a point?"

"Yes," I say, "and that's why I need you to believe in free will. You need to be a deontologist, to think that removing yourself from the context of the criminals you face makes you fair. Because you think it all comes down to choice, and because of that, they can be punished.

"The only reason they are," I say, "is because I say they should. I make you chase after them and beat them to a bloody pulp. Not because I think they deserve it, but because it's necessary for your character. You fight crime, so I make you fight crime. You are a pure symbol of justice, but you also beat people up on a whim. All because the story demands it. _I_ demand it. You're no more good of your own accord than they are evil of theirs. A lot of people think the Joker was the first person to figure that out, but then again, that's only if we allow it."

"And so you use us to make a point?" he says, no less angry.

"Yes," I say.

"What _is_ the point?" he says.

"Whatever the author wants it to be," I say. "Right now I'm using you for existential fun on Halloween. Or maybe something deeper. That's up to the chemical's in the reader's brain to decide. Or whoever's writing them. Their call, not mine."

He pauses again, holds his hand up to his chin, strokes it. He's completely silent on the outside, but inside, he's screaming. Screaming for a lot of things, but mostly answers. I can wait, he'll do it for as long as I want.

"That's evil," he says. "You're a malevolent son of a bitch."

"It's true," I say. "And I am. But listen: there's another reason why we make you carry out these acts of violence again each other."

"What reason is that?" he says.

"It's simple," I say. "If we didn't make you guys do it, the chemicals in our brains would make us do it to each other.

"And sometimes," I say, "we just do that anyways."

So it goes.

 _ **The End..**_

* * *

 **So...yeah, there you go. My second attempt at being Vonnegut.**

 **Let me know what you guys think, and thank you kindly for reading! Hope the chemicals in your brain made you enjoy it at least a little.**


End file.
